Frank suggests it is inherent to democracy and according to Frank if there's any blame to be doled out in connection with political hypocrisy, it's to be placed on the heads of voters who criticize legislators for it, instead of accepting it as a necessary part of democratic politics
yes... lets blame the voter for the person they voted for not doing the things that he was voted in for
I dont disagree with the fact that voters share blame for voting the same people in over and over and seeing nothing change, however for a politician to blame the voter, and even worse make the argument that his hands are tied is pretty pathetic IMO.
Yes, but, voters are even more pathetic for, as you say, voting for the same politicians over and over.
Basically party loyalty is the root of the problem. Its the trap that makes a voter irrelevant, both parties may ignore a loyal party voter. The voter's party because they already have that vote, the other party because they cannot get that vote.
The only way to make politicians accountable is to be a disloyal party member. (1) To consider the other candidate and be willing to vote for that candidate if he/she looks like they will do a better job, which may be will do less damage, "better" is a relative thing. (2) To punitively vote against an incumbent, even from your own party, if they choose to represent interests other than the people's. Honest disagreement over how to accomplish a goal is fine, but acting absolutely contrary to the people's interests must be punished. Failure to do so is encouraging such behavior.
The currency of politics is votes, as Frank admits, but that currency is primarily held by the voters. In a one person one vote system the 99% have the power, the money of the 1% can only buy influence when the 99% permit it. And we permit it by re-electing incumbents that fail to protect our interests. A politicians greatest goal is to get re-elected and that is in the hands of the 99% not the 1%.
Do you really want to spend multiple hours staring into the face of one or more strangers? It's bad enough on a short trolley ride.
That's how long distance train travel worked for a century or so.
Of course the airlines will put the seats much closer. On the plus side we can get more legroom by interlacing our knees, on the downside we'll have to take turns holding each others meal trays.
The cause as much grief as possible argument fails since he was not arrested or charged with anything.
What is your reasoning for that argument? What would be the point of arresting the researcher, if you didn't have anything to charge him with at the time?
Censorship. Charging people is easy. Its convicting them that can be hard. No arrest, no faux prosecution, etc. An awfully poor attempt at censorship, so much so it would be reasonable to expect that something else is the motivation.
Its way premature to cry censorship, its crying wolf as things stand at the moment.
Again, what is the basis for your argument especially given that you admit this is a tremendous imposition requiring such things as "buying new computers".
It is a great inconvenience that silences no one. Assuming its not an employer's computer, then its a minor inconvenience. An awfully poor attempt at censorship, so much so it would be reasonable to expect that something else is the motivation.
The cause as much grief as possible argument fails since he was not arrested or charged with anything. He buys a new computer, restores from backups, and continues on with his research. Yes, a great inconvenience, hardly silencing a researcher or inflicting as much pain as possible for a government. Its way premature to cry censorship, its crying wolf as things stand at the moment.
Or is it an inconvenience for his employer? A work computer that gets replaced?
At the risk of being an etymological pedant, if you take the fun out you don't have much of a festival left.
Well that pretty much describes puritanism, taking the fun out of everything. Aren't these the people that made the church benches/pews intentionally uncomfortable to sit on?:-)
Funny, apple always restores my
Matches, even after deleting the original with the name and composer I've given it. As I listen to a lot of international music and can read Cyrillic and Hanzi I prefer to have the names in the original language
Are you sure its a match? Check the iCloud Status of files. Its either Purchased, Matched or Uploaded.
If Matched is this in the same iTunes session?
You sure its your edits and not that Apple is also using the original language?
it might be that the censorship is an unintentional consequence of a police investigation of a genuine criminal activity with genuine probable cause.
That's my point, with the caveat that its not really censorship since the goal is not to silence anyone but to investigate a crime.
Again, all I'm saying is that its premature to claim censorship. As I said in the beginning all we can say for sure at this point is that it was rude to seize the equipment without asking for cooperation. Facts and opinions may change as more info unfolds.
But the above actions indicate the police did not think the researcher would be cooperative in the investigation. Why?
Might be standard procedure to seize evidence without warning to prevent tampering.
A researcher might want to not disclose contact with a black hat, a source of information. Removing evidence of any contact. The black hat might be the actual target of the police investigation.
No, Apple doesn't restore some user data. You don't get Apple's version of the file unless you delete your copy or never had it on a particular device in the first place.
Apple looks for matches in your library with Apple's library. If it finds a match it makes note of it. If it does not find a match it uploads your copy of the file to Apple's servers. When you restore files you get Apple's copy for matches and your copy for non-matches.
The issue is that Apple only analyzes the music to determine a match. It does not consider the meta data. So the same music with different metadata is a match according to Apple so your edited copy is not saved on Apple's servers. This makes sense given that there is no standard metadata for ripped songs. When ripping a CD one often finds multiple incarnations of metadata to apply.
Sure. "Ballast" need not be rock too. However the valuable stuff was the focus of the journey in the first place and why the investment in the journey was made. The valuable stuff had to pay for any dead-head leg too. They'd pack in as much of the valuable stuff they could find and fit in. The remaining space and any necessary ballast could be anything, including nearly all the cargo space on a dead-head leg where the only other option is empty.
I don't understand why you're calling them heretics.
Because that was what the moderate muslims who put down these movements called these fundamentalist extremists. That is the language arabs used to explain things to Lawrence. It is neither Lawrence's nor my phrasing, it was the mainstream arab phrasing of the day.
You see the same thing today when modern moderate muslims say that Al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc are preaching a false interpretation of Islam. This false, heretical, etc interpretation is not a modern invention, it is one that popped up once or twice a century for many centuries according the arabs explaining things to Lawrence.
Back then they were not referring to, nor are we referring to today, conservatives muslims who preach simple/strict personal practices for one's self but also conform to the tolerant practices of traditional Islam with respect to others who have different beliefs. Tolerance of moderate muslims as well as Jews and Christians.
On paper many of the Arabic personal and place names are spelled strangely. Lawrence favored his own style of transliteration.
Its pretty clear the many digital errors are OCR based. One can often see how the original likely letters were erroneously joined, split, etc. OCR sometimes uses "dictionaries" to detect and repair such errors, dictionaries developed from a training/learning phase of development. I think no training or Arabic name friendly dictionaries were used.
It remains to be seen if there is censorship. Impounding material evidence is not necessarily suppression.
But heavy-handed behavior is a good indication that such suppression is going on. After all, why wouldn't this researcher cooperate with the police?
There was no censorship. The researcher who published the exploits was not arrested. His computers were impounded as part of an investigation. He may not be the target, they may be searching for a 3rd party he was in contact with, perhaps a black hat. Seizing evidence in such a case removes the opportunity for the evidence's destruction. Its a pretty standard thing in North America and Europe too.
As for the "definition". In a region where a generation or two ago "kill the messenger" was literal not figurative, the figurative definition doesn't work.
Bullshit. When the figurative definition is ignored the literal one comes back. Throwing elections (and thuggish suppression of evidence of that) is a phase I'd expect in a return to such tyranny.
The existence of an exploit is not evidence that anyone, government or not, is actually rigging an election. Its evidence of risk. There are most likely exploits in every electronic balloting device and in every web voting system ever made.
within their "religious beliefs" because those things are permissible when the victim is a non-believer and has been given the opportunity to convert;
That is nonsense.
Yes, but that remains what these heretical fundamentalists believe.
There are three so called "book religions", Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Islam honours all those as "believers". Some fanatics in any of those religions might disagree.
Do you realize we agree? Yes, traditional Islam considers Jews and Christians "people of the book", people at different levels of God's revelations depending on what prophet they are following. A string of prophets, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and finally Mohammed. All prophets of the same monotheistic God. However the non-Muslims were not on a par with Muslims, they were merely "protected people". They had to pay a special tax, were not allowed to bear arms, however they were allowed to practice their religion in private, establish their own courts among their people for certain levels of crimes and the Muslim government was completely obligated to protect them as they would a muslim citizen. This changed over time as European power grew, moderates not requiring the tax and recognizing more equality for civil matters.
However as a matter of fact: all those religions pray to the same god. And actually there are a few more religions that pray to that god, eg. the Yazidis.
The "people of the book" concept and certainly the "protected people" status was also extended to Hindus by some rulers/scholars and to Buddhists as well. Although the arguments for the later were a little more complicated.
However Jews and Christians are not necessarily considered "people of the book" by some of the more conservative believers. They require a certain amount of faith and adherence to a person's respective religious laws to be so qualified. And for even more conservative minds a Jew or Christian in Islamic lands not paying the special tax and otherwise behaving under a "protected people" contract were also not considered "people of the book". So yes Jews and Christians can become fair game with respect to be treated as unbelievers. In short, believers must act as believers to some degree, expectations varying.
And of course, the heretical fundamentalist level of expectation is something that has always existed to some degree. Again, Lawrence was specifically warned to travel in native clothing with guards because there were heretics who would kill him for no other reason than being a Christian in Islamic lands, even with the blessing of the Saudi king.
Centuries of central and north african slave trade was founded upon this idea that a non-believer was fair game.
No, it was founded on the fact that Christians payed a fair amount of money for black slaves!
No. Internal slavery predated and coexisted with the North American slave trade. Various African kingdoms had a long tradition of slavery and would participate in the North American trade. This included several Islamic governments. I believe that Lawrence also witnessed some slaves among the Arabian nobles. Admittedly their situation seemed closer to what in North America would have been temporary indentured servitude, so perhaps something was lost in translation. However it remains a fact that slavery in its most brutal and dehumanizing fashion was practiced by some Islamic african governments and that being classified as a "non-believer" made one fair game, a "non-believer" in the eyes of that government to be specific.
Having to buy a new computer and restore from backups is not in the same league.
Doesn't have to be in order to fit the definition. And milder forms of censorship and suppression are often preludes to greater forms especially in places where there's already a history of such tyranny.
It remains to be seen if there is censorship. Impounding material evidence is not necessarily suppression. Its not clear that the researcher is the target, he may merely possess evidence that would make some black hat less anonymous. It premature to claim "kill the messenger" using any definition of that phrase.
As for the "definition". In a region where a generation or two ago "kill the messenger" was literal not figurative, the figurative definition doesn't work.
So why would the next messenger bring any message?
Because the next messenger would be smart enough to realize that if they have any electronic data more valuable than school assignment, video game save game files, selfies and letters to grandma then they should have offsite backups. Whether your data burns up in a fire, gets destroyed in a flood, gets stolen by non-government agents or impounded by government agents does not really matter; except that in the impounding case you might get it back. Back it up and there is much less to fear.
And perhaps this first messenger has a backup too.
In this case everybody has the information: "As reported Telam a specialist who preferred anonymity, which leaked on the web are "SSL certificates terminals that send data from the schools to the datacenter," which were published "on the site http: //caba.operaciones.com.ar by poor settings on your servers. "" (translated version).
The desired "evidence" may be unreported information. For example things that make otherwise anonymous people less anonymous. Again, the researcher is not necessarily the target.
Actually, the cool parallel you forgot is that melange was essential to the Guild Navigators, they couldn't navigate ships between stars without constant heavy use of melange to make them future-seeing. The rest of melange properties were merely valuable; this one kept universal trade going, essential to the economy. In short, it was the absolutely necessary strategic resource that kept transportation working. Now that's a parallel.
Well we did have many centuries of land and sea transportation before oil. Admittedly the long range transportation usually involved more important stuff. The less important and simpler stuff coming from more local sources, unlike today where even this comes from the other side of the world. Our society has alternative, historical and modern. The imperial society of Herbert's Dune had no alternative, they were interstellar not terrestrial. The absence of melange meant planetary isolation with the loss of instantaneous travel (folding space, even better than light/warp speed). By comparison our strategic resource is a convenience.
If the researcher is not being arrested its not "kill the messenger". Impounding his equipment, the "evidence", is just a very rude way of getting his data on vulnerabilities and attacks. They could have asked. Then again perhaps they feared the "evidence" being tampered with, confidential sources and all that sort of thing. Again, rude, but a plausible path if such concerns were warranted.
In the U.S., they can take all of your stuff if they arrest. Well, technically they can't, because that would be unconstitutional and illegal, but they DO. So how much worse is it when they can take all of your stuff without even arresting you?
In the US seizing material evidence of a crime and arresting a person are also two different things. The evidence may be of some third person's criminal activities, something the person who possesses the evidence was not involved in.
In Lawrence's day the Arab leaders referred to such fundamentalism as a heresy for many of the reasons your co-worker states. A heretical intolerant only our beliefs is permissible fundamentalist islam. ISIS accurately represents some of these fundamentalist heretics, Lawrence was explicitly warned by Arab leaders of fanatics who would murder him for nothing more than being a christian in arab lands even with the permission of the Saudi king. And yes, to such fanatics slavery and murder are absolutely within their "religious beliefs" because those things are permissible when the victim is a non-believer and has been given the opportunity to convert; and these people consider non-believers to include moderate muslims. Anything short of their beliefs is a heresy and un-islamic to these fundamentalists and if you decline conversion you are fair game. Centuries of central and north african slave trade was founded upon this idea that a non-believer was fair game.
They went into his house and took his shit. In South America. I think that qualifies as "kill the messenger".
In a region with a history of actual political assassinations (body found) and dissapearances (body not found), no that does not qualify. Such things happened as recently as the 1980s. About 10 years ago the Argentine Congress established a "Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice" for such victims. Having to buy a new computer and restore from backups is not in the same league.
So why would the next messenger bring any message?
Because the next messenger would be smart enough to realize that if they have any electronic data more valuable than school assignment, video game save game files, selfies and letters to grandma then they should have offsite backups. Whether your data burns up in a fire, gets destroyed in a flood, gets stolen by non-government agents or impounded by government agents does not really matter; except that in the impounding case you might get it back. Back it up and there is much less to fear.
And perhaps this first messenger has a backup too.
If the researcher is not being arrested its not "kill the messenger". Impounding his equipment, the "evidence", is just a very rude way of getting his data on vulnerabilities and attacks. They could have asked. Then again perhaps they feared the "evidence" being tampered with, confidential sources and all that sort of thing. Again, rude, but a plausible path if such concerns were warranted.
FWIW I read it on a kindle and the OCR errors are frequent and the editing/corrections seem non-existent. The arabic names of people and places obviously not part of the OCR software's training. Some day when I do a second reading I will probably use a book.
Nostradamus' "Hister" was clearly a foretelling of Lister. It's eerie how he knew about Red Dwarf hundreds of years before television was even invented!
Clearly Red Dwarf is a documentary and they eventually time travel and visit Nostradamus and the BBC.
More like a war FOR drugs. Melange provided benefits such as extended lifespan and expanded consciousness at the cost of severe addiction.
Well the war on drugs does fit better in the sense that "melange" would be a controlled substance subject to government regulation. Its production, processing, distribution and use government controlled. Much like medicinal opioids made from the same poppies as heroin. Cocaine and THC (marijuana) have their approved medicinal uses too. Referring to THC at the federal level, not state deregulation of medicinal marijuana.
"Lawrence would, I assure you, get along swimmingly," said Tony Blair.
Perhaps in the Saudi palace but not over the countryside he once roamed. The cultural understanding and respect and the diplomacy of Lawrence would not help him much in an environment where being a local moderate muslim can be a death sentence. Re-read your Seven Pillars. The fundamentalist herecies that periodically occurred were normally put down by the local moderates before they caused much trouble. Plus the protection of the Saudi king doesn't carry the weight it used to in the region. Things are completely different today in so many ways.
Slashdot Mirror
Frank suggests it is inherent to democracy and according to Frank if there's any blame to be doled out in connection with political hypocrisy, it's to be placed on the heads of voters who criticize legislators for it, instead of accepting it as a necessary part of democratic politics
yes... lets blame the voter for the person they voted for not doing the things that he was voted in for
I dont disagree with the fact that voters share blame for voting the same people in over and over and seeing nothing change, however for a politician to blame the voter, and even worse make the argument that his hands are tied is pretty pathetic IMO.
Yes, but, voters are even more pathetic for, as you say, voting for the same politicians over and over.
Basically party loyalty is the root of the problem. Its the trap that makes a voter irrelevant, both parties may ignore a loyal party voter. The voter's party because they already have that vote, the other party because they cannot get that vote.
The only way to make politicians accountable is to be a disloyal party member. (1) To consider the other candidate and be willing to vote for that candidate if he/she looks like they will do a better job, which may be will do less damage, "better" is a relative thing. (2) To punitively vote against an incumbent, even from your own party, if they choose to represent interests other than the people's. Honest disagreement over how to accomplish a goal is fine, but acting absolutely contrary to the people's interests must be punished. Failure to do so is encouraging such behavior.
The currency of politics is votes, as Frank admits, but that currency is primarily held by the voters. In a one person one vote system the 99% have the power, the money of the 1% can only buy influence when the 99% permit it. And we permit it by re-electing incumbents that fail to protect our interests. A politicians greatest goal is to get re-elected and that is in the hands of the 99% not the 1%.
Do you really want to spend multiple hours staring into the face of one or more strangers? It's bad enough on a short trolley ride.
That's how long distance train travel worked for a century or so.
Of course the airlines will put the seats much closer. On the plus side we can get more legroom by interlacing our knees, on the downside we'll have to take turns holding each others meal trays.
The cause as much grief as possible argument fails since he was not arrested or charged with anything.
What is your reasoning for that argument? What would be the point of arresting the researcher, if you didn't have anything to charge him with at the time?
Censorship. Charging people is easy. Its convicting them that can be hard. No arrest, no faux prosecution, etc. An awfully poor attempt at censorship, so much so it would be reasonable to expect that something else is the motivation.
Its way premature to cry censorship, its crying wolf as things stand at the moment.
Again, what is the basis for your argument especially given that you admit this is a tremendous imposition requiring such things as "buying new computers".
It is a great inconvenience that silences no one. Assuming its not an employer's computer, then its a minor inconvenience. An awfully poor attempt at censorship, so much so it would be reasonable to expect that something else is the motivation.
The cause as much grief as possible argument fails since he was not arrested or charged with anything. He buys a new computer, restores from backups, and continues on with his research. Yes, a great inconvenience, hardly silencing a researcher or inflicting as much pain as possible for a government. Its way premature to cry censorship, its crying wolf as things stand at the moment.
Or is it an inconvenience for his employer? A work computer that gets replaced?
At the risk of being an etymological pedant, if you take the fun out you don't have much of a festival left.
Well that pretty much describes puritanism, taking the fun out of everything. Aren't these the people that made the church benches/pews intentionally uncomfortable to sit on? :-)
Funny, apple always restores my Matches, even after deleting the original with the name and composer I've given it. As I listen to a lot of international music and can read Cyrillic and Hanzi I prefer to have the names in the original language
Are you sure its a match? Check the iCloud Status of files. Its either Purchased, Matched or Uploaded.
If Matched is this in the same iTunes session?
You sure its your edits and not that Apple is also using the original language?
it might be that the censorship is an unintentional consequence of a police investigation of a genuine criminal activity with genuine probable cause.
That's my point, with the caveat that its not really censorship since the goal is not to silence anyone but to investigate a crime.
Again, all I'm saying is that its premature to claim censorship. As I said in the beginning all we can say for sure at this point is that it was rude to seize the equipment without asking for cooperation. Facts and opinions may change as more info unfolds.
But the above actions indicate the police did not think the researcher would be cooperative in the investigation. Why?
Might be standard procedure to seize evidence without warning to prevent tampering.
A researcher might want to not disclose contact with a black hat, a source of information. Removing evidence of any contact. The black hat might be the actual target of the police investigation.
Apple destroys user data
oops
No, Apple doesn't restore some user data. You don't get Apple's version of the file unless you delete your copy or never had it on a particular device in the first place.
Apple looks for matches in your library with Apple's library. If it finds a match it makes note of it. If it does not find a match it uploads your copy of the file to Apple's servers. When you restore files you get Apple's copy for matches and your copy for non-matches.
The issue is that Apple only analyzes the music to determine a match. It does not consider the meta data. So the same music with different metadata is a match according to Apple so your edited copy is not saved on Apple's servers. This makes sense given that there is no standard metadata for ripped songs. When ripping a CD one often finds multiple incarnations of metadata to apply.
Sure. "Ballast" need not be rock too. However the valuable stuff was the focus of the journey in the first place and why the investment in the journey was made. The valuable stuff had to pay for any dead-head leg too. They'd pack in as much of the valuable stuff they could find and fit in. The remaining space and any necessary ballast could be anything, including nearly all the cargo space on a dead-head leg where the only other option is empty.
I don't understand why you're calling them heretics.
Because that was what the moderate muslims who put down these movements called these fundamentalist extremists. That is the language arabs used to explain things to Lawrence. It is neither Lawrence's nor my phrasing, it was the mainstream arab phrasing of the day.
You see the same thing today when modern moderate muslims say that Al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc are preaching a false interpretation of Islam. This false, heretical, etc interpretation is not a modern invention, it is one that popped up once or twice a century for many centuries according the arabs explaining things to Lawrence.
Back then they were not referring to, nor are we referring to today, conservatives muslims who preach simple/strict personal practices for one's self but also conform to the tolerant practices of traditional Islam with respect to others who have different beliefs. Tolerance of moderate muslims as well as Jews and Christians.
On paper many of the Arabic personal and place names are spelled strangely. Lawrence favored his own style of transliteration.
Its pretty clear the many digital errors are OCR based. One can often see how the original likely letters were erroneously joined, split, etc. OCR sometimes uses "dictionaries" to detect and repair such errors, dictionaries developed from a training/learning phase of development. I think no training or Arabic name friendly dictionaries were used.
It remains to be seen if there is censorship. Impounding material evidence is not necessarily suppression.
But heavy-handed behavior is a good indication that such suppression is going on. After all, why wouldn't this researcher cooperate with the police?
There was no censorship. The researcher who published the exploits was not arrested. His computers were impounded as part of an investigation. He may not be the target, they may be searching for a 3rd party he was in contact with, perhaps a black hat. Seizing evidence in such a case removes the opportunity for the evidence's destruction. Its a pretty standard thing in North America and Europe too.
As for the "definition". In a region where a generation or two ago "kill the messenger" was literal not figurative, the figurative definition doesn't work.
Bullshit. When the figurative definition is ignored the literal one comes back. Throwing elections (and thuggish suppression of evidence of that) is a phase I'd expect in a return to such tyranny.
The existence of an exploit is not evidence that anyone, government or not, is actually rigging an election. Its evidence of risk. There are most likely exploits in every electronic balloting device and in every web voting system ever made.
within their "religious beliefs" because those things are permissible when the victim is a non-believer and has been given the opportunity to convert; That is nonsense.
Yes, but that remains what these heretical fundamentalists believe.
There are three so called "book religions", Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Islam honours all those as "believers". Some fanatics in any of those religions might disagree.
Do you realize we agree? Yes, traditional Islam considers Jews and Christians "people of the book", people at different levels of God's revelations depending on what prophet they are following. A string of prophets, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and finally Mohammed. All prophets of the same monotheistic God. However the non-Muslims were not on a par with Muslims, they were merely "protected people". They had to pay a special tax, were not allowed to bear arms, however they were allowed to practice their religion in private, establish their own courts among their people for certain levels of crimes and the Muslim government was completely obligated to protect them as they would a muslim citizen. This changed over time as European power grew, moderates not requiring the tax and recognizing more equality for civil matters.
However as a matter of fact: all those religions pray to the same god. And actually there are a few more religions that pray to that god, eg. the Yazidis.
The "people of the book" concept and certainly the "protected people" status was also extended to Hindus by some rulers/scholars and to Buddhists as well. Although the arguments for the later were a little more complicated.
However Jews and Christians are not necessarily considered "people of the book" by some of the more conservative believers. They require a certain amount of faith and adherence to a person's respective religious laws to be so qualified. And for even more conservative minds a Jew or Christian in Islamic lands not paying the special tax and otherwise behaving under a "protected people" contract were also not considered "people of the book". So yes Jews and Christians can become fair game with respect to be treated as unbelievers. In short, believers must act as believers to some degree, expectations varying.
And of course, the heretical fundamentalist level of expectation is something that has always existed to some degree. Again, Lawrence was specifically warned to travel in native clothing with guards because there were heretics who would kill him for no other reason than being a Christian in Islamic lands, even with the blessing of the Saudi king.
Centuries of central and north african slave trade was founded upon this idea that a non-believer was fair game. No, it was founded on the fact that Christians payed a fair amount of money for black slaves!
No. Internal slavery predated and coexisted with the North American slave trade. Various African kingdoms had a long tradition of slavery and would participate in the North American trade. This included several Islamic governments. I believe that Lawrence also witnessed some slaves among the Arabian nobles. Admittedly their situation seemed closer to what in North America would have been temporary indentured servitude, so perhaps something was lost in translation. However it remains a fact that slavery in its most brutal and dehumanizing fashion was practiced by some Islamic african governments and that being classified as a "non-believer" made one fair game, a "non-believer" in the eyes of that government to be specific.
Having to buy a new computer and restore from backups is not in the same league.
Doesn't have to be in order to fit the definition. And milder forms of censorship and suppression are often preludes to greater forms especially in places where there's already a history of such tyranny.
It remains to be seen if there is censorship. Impounding material evidence is not necessarily suppression. Its not clear that the researcher is the target, he may merely possess evidence that would make some black hat less anonymous. It premature to claim "kill the messenger" using any definition of that phrase.
As for the "definition". In a region where a generation or two ago "kill the messenger" was literal not figurative, the figurative definition doesn't work.
So why would the next messenger bring any message?
Because the next messenger would be smart enough to realize that if they have any electronic data more valuable than school assignment, video game save game files, selfies and letters to grandma then they should have offsite backups. Whether your data burns up in a fire, gets destroyed in a flood, gets stolen by non-government agents or impounded by government agents does not really matter; except that in the impounding case you might get it back. Back it up and there is much less to fear.
And perhaps this first messenger has a backup too.
In this case everybody has the information: "As reported Telam a specialist who preferred anonymity, which leaked on the web are "SSL certificates terminals that send data from the schools to the datacenter," which were published "on the site http: / /caba.operaciones.com.ar by poor settings on your servers. "" (translated version).
The desired "evidence" may be unreported information. For example things that make otherwise anonymous people less anonymous. Again, the researcher is not necessarily the target.
Actually, the cool parallel you forgot is that melange was essential to the Guild Navigators, they couldn't navigate ships between stars without constant heavy use of melange to make them future-seeing. The rest of melange properties were merely valuable; this one kept universal trade going, essential to the economy. In short, it was the absolutely necessary strategic resource that kept transportation working. Now that's a parallel.
Well we did have many centuries of land and sea transportation before oil. Admittedly the long range transportation usually involved more important stuff. The less important and simpler stuff coming from more local sources, unlike today where even this comes from the other side of the world. Our society has alternative, historical and modern. The imperial society of Herbert's Dune had no alternative, they were interstellar not terrestrial. The absence of melange meant planetary isolation with the loss of instantaneous travel (folding space, even better than light/warp speed). By comparison our strategic resource is a convenience.
If the researcher is not being arrested its not "kill the messenger". Impounding his equipment, the "evidence", is just a very rude way of getting his data on vulnerabilities and attacks. They could have asked. Then again perhaps they feared the "evidence" being tampered with, confidential sources and all that sort of thing. Again, rude, but a plausible path if such concerns were warranted.
In the U.S., they can take all of your stuff if they arrest. Well, technically they can't, because that would be unconstitutional and illegal, but they DO. So how much worse is it when they can take all of your stuff without even arresting you?
In the US seizing material evidence of a crime and arresting a person are also two different things. The evidence may be of some third person's criminal activities, something the person who possesses the evidence was not involved in.
In Lawrence's day the Arab leaders referred to such fundamentalism as a heresy for many of the reasons your co-worker states. A heretical intolerant only our beliefs is permissible fundamentalist islam. ISIS accurately represents some of these fundamentalist heretics, Lawrence was explicitly warned by Arab leaders of fanatics who would murder him for nothing more than being a christian in arab lands even with the permission of the Saudi king. And yes, to such fanatics slavery and murder are absolutely within their "religious beliefs" because those things are permissible when the victim is a non-believer and has been given the opportunity to convert; and these people consider non-believers to include moderate muslims. Anything short of their beliefs is a heresy and un-islamic to these fundamentalists and if you decline conversion you are fair game. Centuries of central and north african slave trade was founded upon this idea that a non-believer was fair game.
They went into his house and took his shit. In South America. I think that qualifies as "kill the messenger".
In a region with a history of actual political assassinations (body found) and dissapearances (body not found), no that does not qualify. Such things happened as recently as the 1980s. About 10 years ago the Argentine Congress established a "Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice" for such victims. Having to buy a new computer and restore from backups is not in the same league.
So why would the next messenger bring any message?
Because the next messenger would be smart enough to realize that if they have any electronic data more valuable than school assignment, video game save game files, selfies and letters to grandma then they should have offsite backups. Whether your data burns up in a fire, gets destroyed in a flood, gets stolen by non-government agents or impounded by government agents does not really matter; except that in the impounding case you might get it back. Back it up and there is much less to fear.
And perhaps this first messenger has a backup too.
If the researcher is not being arrested its not "kill the messenger". Impounding his equipment, the "evidence", is just a very rude way of getting his data on vulnerabilities and attacks. They could have asked. Then again perhaps they feared the "evidence" being tampered with, confidential sources and all that sort of thing. Again, rude, but a plausible path if such concerns were warranted.
FWIW I read it on a kindle and the OCR errors are frequent and the editing/corrections seem non-existent. The arabic names of people and places obviously not part of the OCR software's training. Some day when I do a second reading I will probably use a book.
Nostradamus' "Hister" was clearly a foretelling of Lister. It's eerie how he knew about Red Dwarf hundreds of years before television was even invented!
Clearly Red Dwarf is a documentary and they eventually time travel and visit Nostradamus and the BBC.
More like a war FOR drugs. Melange provided benefits such as extended lifespan and expanded consciousness at the cost of severe addiction.
Well the war on drugs does fit better in the sense that "melange" would be a controlled substance subject to government regulation. Its production, processing, distribution and use government controlled. Much like medicinal opioids made from the same poppies as heroin. Cocaine and THC (marijuana) have their approved medicinal uses too. Referring to THC at the federal level, not state deregulation of medicinal marijuana.
"Lawrence would, I assure you, get along swimmingly," said Tony Blair.
Perhaps in the Saudi palace but not over the countryside he once roamed. The cultural understanding and respect and the diplomacy of Lawrence would not help him much in an environment where being a local moderate muslim can be a death sentence. Re-read your Seven Pillars. The fundamentalist herecies that periodically occurred were normally put down by the local moderates before they caused much trouble. Plus the protection of the Saudi king doesn't carry the weight it used to in the region. Things are completely different today in so many ways.